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Comment by jorams | Hacker News Reader

> this is a safe space for me to say unpopular things and not get labeled as a conservative

The first one is confusing. The US is a very conservative country. It just elected a very conservative president. Statistically like 40% of voters call themselves conservative.

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If you look at voting maps for the 2024 USA Presidential Election, you can see that there is a blue band of Democratic voters right down the coast, including the Bay Area. The Bay Area in particular appears to have a very different culture to most of the USA, although I have never been there so cannot confirm that statement personally. I don't think that many Democratic party members consider themselves conservative, whereas a large proportion of Republican party members do.

Mainstream Democrats are conservative, mainstream Republicans are regressive. There is no actual liberal-centric major political party in the US, let alone one that's genuinely leftist.

> let alone one that's genuinely leftist

There are plenty of elected leftists in America. We don’t have a major leftist party because we don’t have a major leftist voting bloc.

What do you consider liberal-centric policies? Or leftist?

As far as I'm aware, Democrats are still rather strong proponents of liberalism. Even most Republicans are proponents, though generally more for classical liberalism than modern liberalism.

Liberalism, arguably, isn't really on the left-right axis at all.

> Even most Republicans are proponents

If this was true, Republican policies and representation would look much differently.

Voting patterns in the US follow population density. The higher the density, the more Democratic voters there tend to be. It’s only if you look at geography that the US appears conservative; unfortunately, due to the Electoral College, “land” can effectively vote.

The “blue bands” is deceiving. Cities are mostly blue, rural areas are mostly red.

Trump is not conservative.

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